"How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of." ~ Suzanna Gratia Hupp

Original article"The bill would legally dismantle the National Security Agency’s most aggressive surveillance programs, including the bulk collection and retention of virtually all Americans’ landline phone records"

Original article"The only thing that's possibly more disturbing than the FBI's desire to make all of us less safe is the utter lack of technological literacy apparent among members of the Appropriations Committee"

On September 9, Alabamians will go to the polls to vote on a proposed tax increase. Like a 21st-century Son of Sam, Governor Bob Riley has claimed that his support for the measure is based on instructions from Jesus.

I was not contacted by any government official prior to March 2003 to ask if I approved of the invasion and occupation of Iraq . I am certain that the hundreds of thousands of troops flooding the Gulf, including their commanding officers, were not polled, either. Certainly, the Administration did not bother to canvass the vast majority of Iraqis regarding their preference for being invaded and...

Farsighted thinkers may already have asked themselves this question: What will the final outcome of America's occupation of Iraq be? The answers are varied and the possibilities lend themselves to endless speculation. God knows they have within the Administration, which seems to weave a new tale almost daily.

My birth, like yours, came about by accident. My mother just happened to be sitting in a soda shop one day when my father walked in and saw her. He was three years older than her; they went to different schools and lived ten miles apart. Some might call their meeting mere coincidence. Others, like Carl Jung perhaps, might call it synchronicity. Maybe if my father had run into a friend and...

Libertarians are divided over Alabama Justice Roy Moore and his two-and-a-half-ton Ten Commandments monument. Those who favour the monument's removal from the courthouse rotunda see it as an issue of the separation of church and state. Those who favour allowing the monument to stay see it as an issue of states' rights. In the end I come down on the side of favouring removal; but the issues...

What freedoms have you lost this week?
The Federal Register is the official daily publication for Rules, Proposed Rules, and Notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as Executive Orders and other Presidential Documents. This column attempts to summarize the highlights (or lowlights) of the Federal Register during the preceding week.
Instructions for subscribing to the Federal...

Six years ago in my former career, I spent two years as a public high school teacher in Baltimore , Maryland . The students who were compelled to attend were nearly 100% black, and a large percentage of them had difficult lives. Many came from families whose primary income was some form of public assistance. One or both parents were absent from many of the homes. An astonishing number of...

Lately we've been hearing quite a bit from the media about how our troops in Iraq are doing. Aside from the usual update to the body count on a nearly daily basis, we are told about the frustration our people in uniform are experiencing. Yet, be that as it may, we are told progress is being made, to stay the course, and that our people are committed to getting the job done.

One popular argument against same-sex marriages is a linguistic one: marriage, it is alleged, is by definition a relationship between a man and a woman, so whatever legal relation gay couples may wish to establish for themselves, it shouldn't be called marriage.

Beyond the count of years I walked the world,
and my children built their shrines to me.
Decades and centuries and millennia pass,
and still the shrines are built.
Temples insubstantial to men,
clear to my eyes.
No foundations or walls or roofs,
but shrines nonetheless.
Holy ground, consecrated
Today, every day, somewhere in the world,
the earth is prepared for my coming. ...

I have studied many religions in my search for truth. In my searches, I embraced a few. I was a nominal Christian for many years and converted to Islam about six years ago. Of course, I have left all of those religions behind, in my never-ending quest for truth. However, there is one "religion" that I studied that seemed to contain more truth than any other. That way is Taoism.

Dear Peace Activists:All honour to you. In your opposition to the United States' impending war on Iraq, you represent a welcome voice for sanity and civilisation, lifted up against the incessant baying of the dogs of war.But I want to urge you to follow the logic of your position just a bit further.Much has been said, and eloquently so, about the need, in dealings between nation and nation, to...

This is the story of how I successfully refused to accept a Social Security Number for my child.
I simply said 'no.'
Really. That's how easy it was. I just said no, again, and again.
On the Texas Application for Birth Certificate, which I was unable to get a copy of for this article, there is a check box down at the bottom of the page. It says, and I'm paraphrasing, 'Check here to have your...

A new Supreme Court case states that cops can take dogs fishing. Dogs can go fishing for drugs in Illinois vs. Caballes.
As an attorney, I am often consulted by people victimized in searches by dogs trained to smell drugs. A drug dog's skills are often overestimated because people anthropomorphize dogs. A humanlike quality that dogs have is that they are natural libertarians with no interest in...

Libertarians, and especially anarchistic libertarians, are known for their principles and strong ideology. This has often been, but does not have to be, a double-edged sword in the fight for freedom.
To be a libertarian, one must embrace the Non-aggression Principle, or at least come to the same policy conclusions as one would based on the principle. Some libertarians say they don't like the...

Exclusive to STR
The jury is still out, as I write these words. Its verdict may be in by the time you read them, and there's a blog with the latest news--but that's okay because the point of this article is not to comment on the trial's outcome but to show what government had to do, in order try to silence an influential advocate of freedom. Its conclusion will be that government is wholly unfit...

Exclusive to STR
Nobody is better qualified than my friend Per Bylund to propose, as he did in a recent STR article, that we who yearn for liberty "save the world through saving [our]selves." Per is not only a brilliant thinker and prolific author (in two languages!) he founded an anarchist website before many of us got our brains in gear and has engaged in debate there all comers from...

The state has grown too big and powerful and conversely the individual appears small and powerless. Libertarians of all stripes can debate endlessly on why this has come about and where we should ideally be instead. When the question of what to do about it comes up, there is typically a moment of silence and perhaps a chuckle or two coupled with some frustrated cynicism. After this moment of...

In his insightful analysis of the Dark Side, STR writer Jonathan David Morris notes that,
"The Dark Side of the Force is not evil for evil's sake. It's evil because it believes the ends always justify the means . . . .

Column by D. Saul Weiner.
Exclusive to STR
There are a lot of heated exchanges going on right now in social media related to vaccination. Many people have become convinced that parents who do not vaccinate are jeopardizing the health of others and that vaccines for children should be mandated. Politicians who are expected to run for president in 2016 are starting to weigh in on the topic and some...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Introduction for this 2013 Edition
As I write this – October 28, 2013, more than four years after the column below was posted (here with minor edits; see the original at this link if you wish) – NBC News is reporting that the Obama administration “knew millions could not keep their health insurance" under Obamacare, and has known...

Column by Alex R. Knight III.
Exclusive to STR
Perhaps never before have I encountered a proposal within Liberty Movement circles that has generated more controversy faster and further than Adam Kokesh’s planned July 4th march on Washington, District of Criminals, in which he states that himself and the other participants “will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to...

Column by Faisal Moghul.
Exclusive to STR
Almost 30 years ago, cultural critic Neil Postman argued in Amusing Ourselves to Death that television’s gradual replacement of the printing press has created a dumbed-down culture driven by mindless entertainment. In this context, Postman claimed that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World correctly foresaw our dystopian future, as opposed to George...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Perhaps I should say this paradigm shift is resuming. The healthier incoming paradigm is a modern, more accurate, better-supported, and better-understood version of one that began the shift towards a free, healthy, and prosperous world more than three centuries ago and which informed the creation of the United States itself: Classical Liberalism.
- 1...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Part 3 of "Could the Non-Aggression Principle Stop the Sixth Great Extinction?"
Part One of this series discussed the Non-Aggression principle, calling it "the libertarian half of the Golden Rule" (compassion being the other half) and describing the function of aggression in creating not only tyranny and war but also...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Question: are you more terrified by Muslim extremists, by "domestic terrorists" – or by your own government? Which group is more likely to assault you? To kill you? To unjustly imprison and even torture you?
The U.S. federal government has ALREADY:
Built and is staffing a huge gulag of concentration camps ["...

Column by JGVibes.
Exclusive to STR
Although the common perception of human nature is very negative, the truth is that most people who aren’t mentally ill have a very difficult time committing acts of violence. Usually it takes a sizeable payment and a fair amount of manipulation to convince someone to act violently, and even then a tremendous amount of guilt typically...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
- 1 -
Plundering Wealth vs Producing Wealth
In recent decades, the rich have gathered an increasing share of the total wealth in the United States. As this wealth disparity grows and especially as large numbers of the formerly middle class fall into poverty and even into homelessness, this flow of wealth from main street (from anyone not...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
This is Part 2 of a response to a column by Wesley Messamore. Last week's Part One of this column discussed the following:
· Minarchy: Lighting a Match to the Fuse of Tyranny
· Anarchy: By Itself, Yang without Yin
· The Missing Key...

Column by L.K. Samuels.
Exclusive to STR
Chaos gets a bad rap—from the academic and scientific world, even from some uninformed libertarians. Few people realize that without the dynamics of chaos, order would not exist. In fact, nothing would exist. Without chaos there would be no creation, no structure and no existence. After all, order is merely the repetition of patterns; chaos is the...

Column by Paul Bonneau.
Exclusive to STR
I was reading an article about Roger Williams. The more I learn about him, the more impressed I become.
﻿"Roger Williams was not a man out of time. He belonged to the 17th Century and to Puritans in that century. Yet he was also one of the most remarkable men of his or any century. With absolute faith in the literal truth of the Bible and in his...

Column by Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
I've been continuing to read the fascinating story of the modern libertarian movement's early years, as told in the Libertarian Forum, edited and often written by Murray Rothbard. It's vast, but very worthwhile – warmly recommended. I've supplemented it recently with a re-read of parts of Justin Raimondo's excellent biography of him...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Whoever cannot hit the nail on the head should please, not hit it at all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Image of The Ring of Power from Wikimedia Commons
– 1 –
If I had the Ring of Power, I would only use it for GOOD!
Recently, I was reminded that to at least some extent, left-leaning libertarians and anarchists do not understand that...

Column by Alex R. Knight III.
Exclusive to STR
During my years as a practicing alcoholic, I employed any number of tactics to avoid the ultimately invariable conclusion that in order to solve my numerous problems, I needed to stop drinking altogether.
Even long after I had made the inner admission that I was, in all likelihood, suffering from the disease – and I knew or understood very...

The article below contains excerpts from L.K. Samuels’ new book, In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action.
Column by L.K. Samuels.
Exclusive to STR
Good intentions rarely make good laws. Those who do evil almost always think they are doing good for goodness’ sake. Nobody sees himself as evil. As Will Smith, the American actor, once quipped, “...

Column by Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
Prior to Harry Browne's first run for US President in 1996, his friend John Pugsley wrote him a passionate “open letter” urging him not to. As far as I know, Harry didn't reply, but he did continue his campaign – and repeated it four years later. He got few votes more than the LP normally receives, but his platform and campaign were...

Column by Greg Haley.
Exclusive to STR
Ed Schultz has set quite the task out for himself. On his New Year’s Eve broadcast on MSNBC, he announced who his “Middle Class Heroes of 2012” are.
Schultz is a self-styled liberal, so his recipients of the title “Middle Class Hero” are predictable and worthy of a certain amount of eye rolling. The general reverence for...

Column by tzo.
Exclusive to STR
To anyone who has seen or read The Reader (a synopsis of the relevant part of the story is here), one of the main questions raised in the story is, "What should be done with Hanna?"
Was she responsible for her actions even if she was so thoroughly indoctrinated so as to be completely confused by the charges against her? She asked more than once, while...

Column by Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
Recently I re-read part of that seminal essay, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de la Boëtie, written in 1548, or 464 years ago. He said that if you want to topple a tyrant, all you need to do is to withdraw support. No violence, no sweat, just stop helping him.
Yet 24 years later there was a massacre of Huguenot Protestants, indicating that...